The image of VectorLinux 7.0 SOHO downloaded from http://virtualboximages.com/VectorLinux+7+SOHO+Virtual+Appliance has the network link broken (through the NAT interface of Vbox 4.2.16 installed in Windows 7). After a few hours, and without finding straightforward instructions in the net, I managed to solve the problem. The interface in the guest is eth1.

The following files shall be configured like shown below (many comments in the files are removed for brevity). Also, I used netconfig to give (irrelevant) username and domain (IMHO this is not relevant for solving the problem) and to order the use of DHCP (the default choice, check the netconfig manual). Hope this helps someone, because that VL image is quite nicely configured.

# /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf## This file contains the configuration settings for network interfaces.# If USE_DHCP[interface] is set to "yes", this overrides any other settings.# If you don't have an interface, leave the settings null ("").